Archive for April, 2010

Made it! Am sitting in the very same seat that I sat in when I posted the update when I was on my way to Kenya in January. Not sure what it is about me going to Kenya and the weather as it was snow that almost scuppered my plans last time, this time volcanic ash!

Fair to say its been a bit of a rollercoaster week with trying to work out whether the trip was on or not, trying to tie in with Rocky from America and looking at contingency plans. Train, 12 hours on a bus (yuck several sick bags would have been needed for that) and hitch hiking were all investigated.

However, with things looking better by Wednesday night I decided to stick with flying. The plan had been to fly BMI to Heathrow with some colleagues who were travelling down for a meeting, with the added purpose of carrying a case of knickers for me. With all the disruption and uncertainty the meeting was cancelled. I managed to get 1355 pairs of pants into 2 suitcases, which is fine for flying Virgin Atlantic to Nairobi, but you’re only allowed 1 case (20kg) flying BMI to Heathrow so was looking at excess baggage charges of over £200 😦

[imagine a drum roll] Step forward my 2 new heroes – Tracey Ashworth-Davies and David Robinson. David called me yesterday just after 3pm to tell me he’d managed to get my excess baggage charges waived. This completely confused me as couldn’t understand how he knew about it, but David and Tracey had been scheming behind my back. Tracey was one of the pants mules going to the meeting in London and felt bad that the meeting had been cancelled. Unknown to me she had spoken to David and written to BMI a pleading email asking for the charges to be waived but they said no. Did they give up? Nope – David then drove out to Edinburgh airport and somehow managed to get them to agree to it. How amazing are they, and I want FULL details of how he managed it when I get back.

As it looked really bleak at the beginning of the week as to whether the trip would be on or not, we only tentatively organised transport for going to the IDP camps, so have no firm plan in place. If we can’t get to the camps, then I’ll be going to an orphanage and schools in and around Kahawa West, or it might be a mix of both. This time tomorrow I’ll be on “Kenyan” time so who knows.

But what we do know is that I won’t be worrying about excess baggage costs on the way home as I’ll be 1355 pairs of knickers lighter 🙂